Australian Working Holiday Visa extended to 3 years

The Working Holiday Visa in Australia lets people 18 to 30 years old have a holiday while working in the country. This Visa is often called ‘Backpacker Visa’ by Immigrants. People holding the visa can apply for a one-year extension if they have worked for 3 months in the country. On Nov 5 2018, Australia announced that it was extending Working Holiday Visa. It will now allow Immigrants to stay in the country for up to 3 years. However, they have to work for at least 6 months in the agriculture field. As quoted by Channel NewsAsia, the aim is to ease the farm labor shortage. The change will be effective from July 2019. Immigrants can extend their Working Holiday Visa to the third year. They should spend 6 months working in regions where severe labor shortages are reported. This new change was announced by Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister of Australia. Mr. Morrison declared the change in policy during his visit to the eastern state of Queensland. This place is particularly important for his fragile coalition government. It is supposed to face a national election by May. The root of this issue lies in the nation’s decision to curb Immigration. Since 2017, Australian Government has been reducing the scope of Working Holiday Visa. However, the agriculture field has suffered severely due to the labor shortage. Their complaints eventually led to this decision. In the last two years, over 200,000 Working Holiday Visas were issued to Immigrants from Germany, France and Britain. The scheme is open to Singapore as well for people 18 to 30 years old. The University of New South Wales has recently published a survey. It shows how much Immigrants earn while they work under the Working Holiday Visa. It is observed that most students and backpackers earned only a fraction of the minimum wage. The report further revealed that Australia has a huge number of underpaid Immigrant workers. The unclaimed wages could be well over a billion dollars. Y-Axis offers a wide range of visa services and products for aspiring overseas immigrants including General skilled migration – Subclass 189 /190/489 with RMA review, General skilled migration – Subclass 189 /190/489, Work Visa for Australia, and Business Visa for Australia. If you are looking to Visit, Study, Work, Invest or Migrate to Australia, talk to Y-Axis, the World’s No.1 Immigration & Visa Consultant. If you found this blog engaging, you may also like… Australia is the world’s first immigration economy